1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display device, to a method of manufacturing a liquid crystal display device, and to an electronic apparatus. More particularly, the invention relates to a liquid crystal display device capable of preventing defects in display due to a multi-gap step difference, to a method of manufacturing a liquid crystal display device, and to an electronic apparatus provided with the liquid crystal display device.
2. Related Art
In general, liquid crystal display devices are used as image displaying devices in which a pair of substrates each having electrodes are arranged opposite to each other, and a voltage applied to a plurality of pixels positioned at the intersections of these electrodes is selectively turned on or off to modulate light passing through a liquid crystal material of pixel regions, thereby displaying images, such as figures or characters.
As the liquid crystal display device, a transflective liquid crystal display device capable of performing both reflective display and transmissive display is available. That is, in transmissive regions, light emitted from a backlight provided on the rear side of a substrate is incident on a liquid crystal panel, passes through a liquid crystal material layer, and is then emitted to the outside. On the other hand, in reflective regions, external light incident on the liquid crystal panel from the outside passes through the liquid crystal material layer and is then reflected from a reflective film. Then, the reflected light passes through the liquid crystal material layer again to be emitted to the outside. Since the transflective liquid crystal display device is provided with transmissive and reflective regions, it can display images using external light, such as sunlight, in the daytime or bright places, which makes it possible to reduce power consumption. In addition, the transflective liquid crystal display device can also display images using a backlight in the night or relatively dark places.
To improve the color forming property in both the reflective and transmissive regions of a transflective liquid crystal display device and optimize retardation therein, a liquid crystal display device having a so-called multi-gap structure has been proposed. More specifically, FIGS. 23A to 23C show a transflective liquid crystal display device in which a reflective layer 604 for defining a reflective region 631 and a transmissive region 632 is formed in a pixel 603, and a layer-thickness adjusting layer 606 is formed on the reflective layer 604 such that a portion thereof corresponding to the transmissive region 632 is opened (for example, see JP-A-2003-270627 (claims and FIG. 1)).
However, in the liquid crystal display device having the multi-gap structure disclosed in JP-A-2003-270627, since retardation is deteriorated in both the reflective regions and the transmissive regions, step portions of the layer-thickness adjusting layer corresponding to boundaries between the reflective regions and the transmissive regions cause defects in display.
Further, as an angle formed between the surface of the substrate and the wall of the step portion becomes larger, the adhesion of the electrodes formed in the step portions becomes lower. Therefore, in general, the step portions are formed to be inclined. Thus, when the surface of the substrate is viewed in the vertical direction (e.g., a plan view), the step portion has a predetermined width, and a region corresponding to the step portion causes defects in display, which results in the lowering of display characteristics, such as contrast.
Therefore, according to the invention, to address the above-mentioned problems, in a liquid crystal display device having a multi-gap structure, a layer-thickness adjusting layer for making the thicknesses of the liquid crystal material layer different from each other in the reflective region and the transmissive region is formed in a strip shape in a predetermined direction in the display region, to reliably ensure electrical connection between the electrodes formed on the layer-thickness adjusting layer outboard of the display region.